Esports Authority Report April 13th

13 Apr , 2018

It has been another busy week in esports with the Overwatch League beginning its third stage of Season 1 action with some surprising results. The NBA2K League has released its schedule for the season and Stage 1 of the Call of Duty World League came to a thrilling conclusion. Meanwhile the Madden Ultimate League regular season is winding down making for some intense pre playoff matches. Let’s dive right in.

Overwatch League

The Overwatch League returned to action last week kicking off stage 3 and it was full of surprises. While the stage 2 champions NYXL managed to go undefeated in the opening week, finalists Philadelphia lost their series 3-2 against Boston giving them a 1-1 record to kick off stage three. The London Spitfire, who finished in second in the previous stage, began with a horrible week, losing to Houston before being swept 4-0 by New York.

Boston and the Los Angeles Valiant both also had undefeated weeks to kick off this third stage. While the Valiant looked strong in the first stage they faltered during the second, this promising opening week suggests they may have fixed some of the problems that plagued them last stage. The Boston Uprising team has steadily improved since the beginning of the year, and while their roster entered the season with many question marks, those are all beginning to be answered. Shanghai Dragons saw their struggles continue, again losing both series leaving them searching for their first series victory on the season.

Call of Duty World League

The First Stage of the 2018 CWL Pro League came to a thrilling conclusion this past weekend. FaZe Clan would emerge as the champions once the dust had settled but not without some significant opposition being put in front of them. They began the weekend well enough, emerging from Division B in first place after the pool play with an 11-3 record. This gave them a top seed entering the knockout bracket, but with every team at this event being so good even a top seed didn’t create an easy path to the finals.

Their first round opponents were Team Kaliber, who won both the Dallas and New Orleans events to kick off this season. Kaliber brought their championship form and quickly handed FaZe a 3-1 defeat, sending them into the loser’s bracket.

More than anything this event, FaZe demonstrated resilience and mental toughness, not letting defeats bother them. Their loser bracket run began with matches against EnVy and eUnited, both of whom they defeated 3-2. This is despite the fact EnVy and eUnited handed FaZe 2 of their 3 pool play losses.

Then it was time for revenge on Team Kaliber. Using momentum from their previous series they were able to roll over tK in an astounding 3-0 sweep. Luminosity Gaming was waiting for them in the Loser’s Finals. The series was another nail biter but again it was FaZe able to secure the final win and advance to the finals 3-2.

This placed FaZe in the finals against an OpTic Gaming team that had yet to make the finals at a single major Lan event this year so far. With FaZe coming from the lower bracket they had to defeat OpTic in two separate best of 5’s to win the championship, and that is exactly what they were able to do. Both times the series went the full five games, yet FaZe were able to secure the crucial map victory when it mattered most.

While making the finals was certainly an improvement for the struggling Greenwall, this is an organization that expects championships in Call of Duty. Analysts and pro players agree that if the roster is not victorious at the next major, there could very likely be a roster move in OpTic’s near future.

Madden Ultimate League

The Madden Ultimate League has only one week of action remaining, after the Legend conference finished all of their matches last week. This means that we now have half of the entrants into the final 12 man elimination tournament for the end of the season. Musafa lost both his matches in the final week but due to Dot City Kaus defeating Tweez that pair were eliminated and Musafa claimed the final playoff birth. The 6 players who qualified for the championship event are listed below with their records.

Problem (8-2)

Drini (7-3)

Echo Fox Joke (5-5)

Dubby (5-5)

True (5-5)

Musafa (4-6)

The Elite conference has two matches yet to be played, but with Noble Prodigy and SpotMePlzzz only having two win’s on the season so far they are two games out of the final position likely meaning the final 6 is already decided. Catch all of the final regular season action Saturday at 5PM EST from their stream on twitch.

NBA2K

If there were still any doubts about how seriously the NBA was taking the 2K league it’s recently released schedule should confirm that they are taking it very seriously. With a million dollars up for grabs over the course of the season including three major tournaments worth $100, 000 – $150, 000 each there is a lot to be excited about for fans and players with this inaugural season. The season champion will receive $300 000 in addition to being able to call themselves the best 2K team in the world. While the exact schedules of the teams and the start times for the matches have not been announced, a general roadmap has been released and included below.

Notable Weekend Event – Halo World Championship

Today also marks the beginning of the third ever Halo World Championship. 16 of the world’s best teams will be meeting in Seattle at the Century Link Field Event Center to compete for their share of a million dollar prize pool. TOX enters this world championship having won the first two decisively, but this year Splyce has won the past two tournaments making things far more interesting. There will be two streams for the weekend; a primary stream ((Mixer, Twitch, MLG, Twitter Live) and a bravo stream for the side stations (Mixer, Twitch, MLG). This way you can follow your favorite team all weekend long, no matter where they are playing.